Duluth Mayor Don Ness Offers a Message on the State of Recovery One Year After the June 2012 Flood [VIDEO]

A year ago today, community members found themselves shellshocked by the extensive damage that followed intense rainfall overnight June 19-20, 2012. In the year since the flood, much progress has been made, but as Duluth Mayor Don Ness says, there is still a long road ahead in achieving full recovery for the city.

In a video posted on the mayor's official Facebook page, Ness addresses the pride he has in community members, organizations, city employees, and others that invested countless hours in helping clean up the incredible mess left behind by over 10 inches of rain last June.

While proud of recovery efforts so far, Ness also cautions that we have not fully recovered from the flood. Homes and business still remain in disrepair. Roadways and other infrastructure need additional work. He urged the community to stay resilient through the remaining recovery efforts, which he expects to be mostly completed by June of 2014.

Watch Mayor Ness's Statement Marking the First Anniversary of the Duluth Flood

The video was posted with a statement on his Facebook page, which read:

Here's a video we put together marking the one year anniversary of the flood. It doesn't address any specific project updates, instead focuses on where we are as a community a year later. These are difficult times for our city - we have a lot of big challenges facing our city - some are flood related, many are not. I want folks to know that I take full ownership of these problems and we take our responsibility to solve these problems very seriously.

Sometimes I regret some of the light-hearted things I've done over the past couple of years ad the attention they've received. I try not to take myself too seriously in this role, but I think it has skewed the perception of my priorities in office. On a day to day basis, I spend 90% of my effort addressing problems and complaints - that's the most important part of my job and where my focus will be as long as I'm in this office.